Those Who Are Alike
by azkabcn
Summary: Part Three in the 'A Family Minus One' trilogy. Anna goes to see Katherine, to see if she has any advice on how to deal with Kristoff's death. One-shot.


Six years. Six long years without Kristoff. How had I survived six years without Kristoff?

I thought I would have gone crazy about two weeks after his death. It seriously was a miracle that I had survived six years.

I stood in front of a house now, a very _beautiful_ house, might I add. Painted white with a black roof, a couple of flower baskets filled with red and white roses were hung from the turrets by the door. The door itself was a bright summer yellow and a brass, lion head knocker sat above the golden number seventy.

I stood on the front step, trying to find the courage to knock on the door. Elsa's fiancé's sister lived here. The sister that had been through the same pain and agony that I had. Katherine Prenderyn was supposed to help me in getting over my dead fiancé. That is, if I could let her know that I was here.

I was always a people person, right from when I was young. Elsa was the one who was afraid of meeting new people. I just couldn't make my hand grip the knocker on the door. This was strange. I had never found myself afraid of making a potential friend.

 _Get a grip, Anna,_ I told myself. _You won't know what Katherine is like until you meet her._

With that thought, I brought my hand up to the lion's head and knocked on the door. I brought my hand down as I tried to wait patiently. _What if she isn't home? What if Will hasn't told her that I was on my way? What if she knows it's me and is ignoring me?_

I was shaken from my thoughts by a soft voice. 'Anna?'

I blinked and I was met with a woman standing before me. She had brown wavy locks that stopped at her shoulders. Her eyes were a deep, sparkling midnight blue. She had on a magenta long-sleeved shirt, black jeans and bright pink pumps. A mixture of perfection, beauty and elegance.

I shook my head to clear my mind. 'Katherine?'

She nodded. 'Yup. You wanna come in?' She stepped back into the hallway, allowing me to walk inside. I smiled at her, then followed her inside.

The inside of the house was even more fascinating. The walls were painted a sky blue and the soft, fluffy carpet was a luscious pink. The ceiling was white and a silver chandelier hung from it. My mouth hung open with awe.

'Wow,' I breathed as I took my shoes off.

'Oh no,' Katherine said, rushing over to stop me. 'Leave your shoes on; I won't mind.'

'But I'll ruin your lovely carpet!' I protested.

'Fine. Come on in and sit down,' she said, holding her arm out to a room.

We went inside to the living room. I found that there were even more pleasant surprises for me. There were two red leather sofas at each end of the room. A large flat screen TV filled one of the longer walls. In the middle of the carpet, there was a glass coffee table.

'Take a seat, Anna,' Katherine said. I smiled as I took a seat on the nearest sofa. 'I'll be right back.' She walked further into the house, but then poked her head back into the room. 'Tea, coffee, hot chocolate?' she queried.

'Hot chocolate, definitely.'

* * *

Once she came back with the tray of drinks, she sat beside me and said: 'Now. My fiancée. What do you want to know about her?'

I sipped at my drink. How did she ask me that question without wavering?

'How… what did she look like?' I asked. Before she answered, I spoke up once again. 'If anything I say is straying into the no-go category, then tell me so. You don't have to answer every question I ask.'

'Hey, it's fine. Aura died eight years ago now. She had a pixie-cut in the most amazing shade of pink.' Katherine pointed to her shirt. 'It was brighter than my shirt, would you believe. And her eyes, her eyes were a bright blue – it's what inspired me to paint my corridor walls that colour. She always wore crazy colours; she didn't care to match. But I loved her for it, you know?' I nodded. 'She had loads of friends; she was such a people person.

'I, on the other hand, was the shiest person there was. I always stayed close to my brother, too scared to go out alone in case I got hurt. But Aura brought out my crazy. Being with her made me the most outgoing person I know.'

She paused, to let me take in all that she'd said. 'She sounds lovely,' I said.

Katherine looked away from me for a second. 'She was. She was amazing.' Then she looked me in the eye and said: 'Even though I miss her like hell, I can move on from her because that's what she would've wanted me to do. She wouldn't have wanted me to fall into depression.'

I sucked in a breath, reluctant to ask my next question. Katherine seemed to sense my discomfort. 'Ask whatever you want, Anna. I won't mind.'

'How… how did she die?'

To my astonishment, Katherine didn't shy away from my question, or stutter her answer. 'Car crash. One of her friends took her clubbing and got drunk. The friend insisted on driving and crashed into a fire extinguisher on the side of the road. Really annoyingly, her friend only got a broken leg, the idiot. Aura died.' Katherine sighed deeply and I knew that even though she claimed to have moved on, Aura's death still haunted her.

'Are you OK?' I asked her softly.

She smiled at me, though her eyes disagreed with the action. 'I'm fine, Anna,' she said calmly. 'Next question?'

'How did you deal with her death? Initially, I mean.' I set my finished drink back on the tray.

'Don't follow my example, OK?' she said, looking me in the eye. 'Even though it helped take the pain away, it was bad for my body.'

'What did you do?'

'I cut. A lot. I slashed my arms and thighs every night. I bled like mad. It got so bad that I even did it in my sleep. One night I dreamt I was jumping off a building. I jumped – and then I woke up. Do you know where I found myself?'

'Where?' I asked, my voice shaking. I didn't think I wanted to know the answer.

'In the kitchen. With a knife in my hand. And blood all around me.' I stared at her, horrified. 'I had slashed my left arm open. I let the massive gash just _bleed_ when I realized, as I decided I was all set to follow Aura, but then Will came downstairs for a drink and saw me. He took off his t-shirt and covered the wound. He yelled for our mother - this was before I moved here but years after Dad left to go work for your parents, by the way. Mum came and called the ambulance. I woke up in the hospital, with stitches up the length of my arm and a permanent scar.'

She took a deep breath and started unbuttoning the cuff button on her left sleeve. 'That's terrible…' I whispered.

Katherine rolled up her sleeve to her shoulder, and I was met with a scar that was at least five millimetres in width and travelled up past her elbow and disappeared into her sleeve. I didn't want to think about how deep it was.

She smiled sadly as she began to roll her sleeve back down. 'It's bad, I know. But the good thing about it is that it helped me stop cutting for good. This happened just under eight years ago, and I haven't put a knife to my skin _once_.'

I smiled; at least she hadn't done it again. 'That's good,' I said.

'But even without cutting, it is possible to deal with it. I promise you, it is.

'All you have to do is take an hour or so out of each day to focus on something completely unrelated to him.' I knew that Katherine was referring to Kristoff but I felt like there was someone else on the line. I didn't bring it up. 'Like you could read a book, or help your sister with her jobs. I personally wrote stories. I have three drawers full of finished stories upstairs.

'Anyway, I wrote every day at half seven in the evening for an hour and a half. By nine o'clock I had subconsciously vented about what was on my mind and formed my thoughts into a story line. It helped me a lot. But you must make sure that, whatever it is that you decide to do, you do it at the _same time_ every day.'

I sat, pondering. I could try that. It could work. It could help me.

So I nodded. 'Thanks, Katherine. I'll try that. But, let me ask you another question,'' I said.

'Go right ahead,' she replied.

'Do you think that it's bad that it's been six years and I still can't talk about it openly like you did?'

'Not at all,' she answered. 'Everybody deals with things differently. I don't mind talking about it, personally because I think that talking about what's on your mind and getting it out of your system is a good way to deal with it.

'But not everyone is comfortable with that. If you don't like talking about it, then you don't have to. No one will push you. Just say that you'd rather not say anything about it, and they should respect your answer. And if they don't, then politely say you have to leave.'

I smiled. 'Thank you so much for your advice, Katherine. I really appreciate it.' I looked at my watch. I needed to get back to feed Sven. 'I have to go.'

'Alright. It was nice meeting you, Princess Anna,' she said as she followed me to the door.

'You too, Katherine Prenderyn.'

I stepped outside and onto the doorstep. I turned back to her. 'I'd like it if we did this again.'

'Me too. If you ask Will for my number – I don't know my number by heart yet; I'm really terrible with memory – he'll give it to you, and then we can arrange a meeting whenever we want.'

'OK, will do. See you soon.'

'Bye, Anna.'

I walked down her driveway, a smile spread on my face. I liked Katherine. I really did.

I might just be able to move on from Kristoff for her.


End file.
